I want to create a new habit, who’s with me?

[Times10]

We’ve come back from holiday, and all the house is showing is that the “put things away once used” habit is not anyone’s forte but especially not mine. So I want to try a 30 day challenge to work on this one thing, and hopefully see a big improvement in the state of the house.
DH is tidier than me, and does put things away a lot more than I do, and I can’t ask the DCs to do it consistently if I’m not being a good role model.
I’m trying to figure out what could be a cue to do it, as that’s obviously what’s missing in the way my brain works at the moment.
So if you want to work on this, or another habit, feel free to join me!

This may sound silly but I have got up early (on time?) every day this week so far. I get up and get completely and it just makes so much difference to my day.

Not silly at all! I’m more of a morning person, but DH isn’t and he ends up having to rush the whole time because he doesn’t get out of bed when the alarm goes. If he got up 10 minutes before, he could have a much more leisurely start.
My kitchen is a bit of a mess once again, but I wasn’t feeling very well last night so didn’t clear up completely after dinner. So that’s my first job this morning. I had a friend over yesterday, as a last minute thing, and I kept noticing all the out of place things that I hadn’t sorted! I’d love to have the kind of house that’s guest ready at the drop of a hat, but I think it means doing a lot more first thing in the morning and last thing at night, neither things that I currently do.

I've been lurking in the background while you've been cracking on! I have been trying to make sure that the dishwasher is emptied so I can encourage the DC to load it after breakfast every day as it makes such a difference coming home after work and school to it already done. I have managed but at the sacrifice of breakfast for me so think I'm going to have to bite the bullet and start getting up a bit earlier too!

An empty dishwasher really helps keep the kitchen under control, but I couldn’t function without breakfast, so good plan to get up a bit earlier.

I’ve had a horrible realisation today. DC1 couldn’t find something they wanted for school this morning, so I decided to tidy the DCs bedroom while they were out. No wonder they can’t keep on top of it, it took me 30 minutes just to clear under a bed and sort everything they’d stuffed under there! Another hour of tidying up, and the room is still not done! And that’s excluding the breaks I’ve been taking. I’ve been working on it since 11, thinking I’d be done by lunch.

I have sorted through their books, as they have too many, they all end up on the floor. I’ve put aside a whole box for the charity shop (but need to hide it before they come back from school) and threw away 2 black bin bags of broken toys and crumpled papers.

I managed to hoover the carpet a bit, but there’s still a lot to do, including going through all the boxes to see what’s in there.

I knew they had too much stuff because they just couldn’t keep up with tidying it up, but I never thought it would be such a big job to just put things away!

I’m having a rest now, as I know they’ll be tired after school, and if I’m grumpy too it’s going to be a difficult evening, so I’m stopping for today and taking a well earned rest until school pick up.

That was me a couple of weeks ago! It took me over an hour just to sort what was under my eldests bed. I totally gutted both their rooms and it took my hours. But to help keep you going, they have done really well keeping on top of it since. They are 6 and 4 so have had some help, but not a lot to be honest, they've done it themselves. Even having a large group of friends round didn't cause too much bother! They get reminded to put dirty washing in the basket and asked to tidy up after playing, that's it. We help if it's a big game they've played and I can see it will take a while on their own. They often do it themselves now because it's much easier now they can actually see where stuff came from!

Glad to hear it was worth it! My DCs are a similar age, and I’ve just implemented the “nothing is allowed under the bed” rule (let’s see how long it lasts!) They’ve already rescued 2 books from the box, as I forgot to hide it, but there’s still a lot more still going!

Our bin is already full, and we still have another week and a half before bin day... I might see if DH can go to the tip this weekend, as we can’t really keep overfilling the bins.

A lovely surprise this morning: DH had washed the dishes up last night, and sorted through the clean clothes, so that’s one less job for me to do today. I think he was very impressed with the work I’d done on the DCs room and could see how shattered I was.
No-one slept well last night, so I’m starting off the day very slowly, in the hope I get enough energy to do my to-do list. Everything seems so much more daunting when you’re tired, doesn’t it?

Kitchen is tidy, I need to put a load of laundry away... still not managing to do that as soon as the clothes are dry, which is silly as one load is so quick to put away, unlike 5 days worth of clean clothes/towels.

You are doing well, Times. I've still managed to get up and get ready in the mornings.

Well done! I think I prefer your habit, you only have to do it once a day... kitchen is a mess again this evening. I’m sure it won’t take long to straighten out, but it’s the shear relentlessness that is a killer. It always needs to be redone
I find it really hard to stay motivated when I know that 2 hours later (if I’m lucky) I have to do it all over again.
I never did end up putting the washing away this morning, and now I’ve added 2 more loads to the pile... so that’s my evening entertainment sorted.
I really want to get to a place where I don’t just think about housework all day, even when I’m doing other things I keep thinking about what I still have to do, and it’s such a pain that there’s no finish point, or at least, I haven’t found it yet!

When I say “only once” I didn’t mean it’s not an achievement, as it really is, but that once you’ve done it, you can get on with the rest of the day, iyswim. Didn’t mean to sound as if I was belittling what you’re doing!

I find that I like an audiobook or a podcast to listen to while I do boring jobs. As a pp says, I find myself doing extra things because I want to keep listening!

I've got a toddler so I do try to have a quick tidy at 'transition' times. So after breakfast, i'll get DS dressed and then tidy up from breakfast and any toys before we head out. Same again after lunch and dinner.

He eats quite slowly so I try to get ahead a bit by cleaning the kitchen as I am waiting for him to finish eating and it motivates me as I know that I don't have to do it when he's gone to bed and it's adult time!

I then have a quick check round while DS is playing in the bath and put everything that needs to go downstairs in a washing basket to carry down. If I remember to take a duster up with me, i'll do a little bit of that as well.

I TOTALLY know what you mean with the kitchen. It is soul destroying. One key thing for me is leaving the dishwasher open so I just fill it all day and then run it overnight, empty it in the morning. I cannot bear cleaning it all day so I do it once (badly) after breakfast, once (badly) after lunch, once (properly) after dinner. Otherwise I go mad.

The transition time is where I started going wrong! I have never been very good at tidying up after finishing an activity, so when you add 2 DCs to the mix, there was really no hope! But I’ve been making an effort, a) to notice and b) to do something about it, and remind the DCs too, so things are starting to be a bit neater (downstairs at least).

Kitchen was tidy this morning, and I got up a bit earlier than us, so I made packed lunch for DC1 and surprised DH with a coffee!
So I can see the benefits of tidying up, just need to make it a task I don’t even have to think about.

I had to bake some last minute cupcakes, which was easy, as my kitchen was tidy! And I put everything away once they were in the oven, so my kitchen is still tidy!! So this is how a normal house works!?!

Sounds like something Bree van der Kamp would do. Far from normal here. well done!

I shall channel my inner Bree a lot more often maybe my motto should be «what would Bree do?»

Kitchen is tidy, apart from a wok I’m leaving to soak overnight. Our frying pan and wok seem to have lost their coating so food burns on them and just doesn’t shift. They need replacing but we keep putting it off.

DH is most impressed with my efforts, I don’t think he ever believed the house would have a beginning of order, but all I need is enough child free time to actually get stuff done. Both DCs have been at school for a week and it’s made such a difference to what I can accomplish.
DC3 is due in a few months, and I’m really hoping that I have cracked the housework by then, and that all the decluttering I’ve been doing recently pays off!

We lived with my parents for a while and my mum did the cooking and washing. (I helped when my mum was hanging the washing up and helped prep but quite often I hadn’t done anything to contribute.)

What I mean by the above was that I never felt amazing/or full of energy that I didn’t have to do anything (but felt totally spoilt and grateful) and, now we are back home, I know I will feel no better or no worse for having household tasks to do each day after working.

I think alot if the problem is time and tiredness. In a house full of four kids and working part time I get knackered. I start a kob and forget to finish as some one shouts me or I remember something else. Love the piggy back idea!!

Yes, I can’t seem to get back to the job I’m doing once I’ve been interrupted, and as soon as the DCs are home, I really struggle to get anything done. Last year DC2 was at preschool in the mornings, but I refused to do housework then as it was my only free time to do something more interesting. Now that they’re both at school full time I have a lot more time to get things done. The plan is to concentrate on decluttering the house as much as possible these next few weeks, so that we can just get into a routine with housework that doesn’t take all day, freeing me up to do the things I actually want to do.

I have been looking at TOMM, but couldn’t see how to make it work properly as we had so much mess to deal with first, but I’m starting to be at the stage where 30 minutes per room would make a big difference now. And having the kitchen sorted most of the time does seem to have freed a lot of time.

Kitchen is tidy, managed to do the bulk before the school run. My aim is to be able to invite friends around straight after the school run. There’s been a few times we’re chatting up to the house, but I just can’t let them in to see the disaster inside. The kitchen is the first step to achieving that goal.

Downstairs is looking better than it has in a long time. This putting things away after use really does help. I got up quite early this morning, so by 7.30, the packed lunches were done, and dinner in the slow cooker, and the kitchen was back to being tidy again.

I’ve got guests coming for a couple of hours this morning, so I have hoovered and quickly mopped the floors. I did have to take quite a few things upstairs so that downstairs looked neater, so that’s a job to do once they’ve left. Most of the stuff does actually belong upstairs, so I’ve done half of the work just by taking it upstairs!

Even a month ago DH would have had to help a lot after work to help straighten out the house, but this time he hardly had anything to do. He did take the box of donations out of the house, as that was cluttering up the hallway, but everything was contained in the box, so it was a very easy job.

I was exhausted last night, so didn’t sort out the kitchen before bed, but it didn’t take long this morning to straighten it out. I’m putting on a lot of washes today, so my main job this evening is to put all the clean clothes away before bed. I’m out most of the day, so won’t be able to bring the clothes in as they get dry, so it’ll be quite a big job tonight. If I could crack the putting laundry away part, most of the house would suddenly feel a lot tidier!

I’ve enjoyed this thread. Keep going! I made a major effort three years ago to try and cut out my own guilt. To give myself a break and speak nicely to myself about cleaning and tidying. It took some effort, but i tried to congratulate myself, “well done nunchuck, good job,” when I’d done a job, rather than feeling guilty that I was stopping/not doing more/got bored/frustrated. I still try and do this. I used to spend all sat am cleaning start 8 ish and stop at 1.30 (dh worked 80 week including saturdays) and then beat myself up that house was still a mess. Started off by saying, yes a mess but kitchen and bathroom are CLEAN and tidy, and all floors are washed and or hoovered. After a few months I got better at saying good job, you’re mum, work full time no help from dh you’re doing ok you know. Will get tidier one day. Then I moved onto fly lady and Mari kondo, little, focussed and often. Then had massive clear out this summer. It’s been three years in the making and ds now older, 14, but cutting the negative self talk made me realise I was making quite a lot of my own stress and making my own life worse.

Re your opening OP, There is also a great academic who studies public health who has a “tiny habits theory”. He talks about micro habits first, not new habit, not small habit, but micro and how critical it is to attach it to existing habit. There is a ted talk if interested search ted and “tiny habits”. I used the theory to make myself make my bed every day. (Slutty I know but there you go). Two years now and do8ng the tiny habit thing means it still works. My bed is made pretty much every day.

Basically If you cut yourself some slack as above and go micro I found it all less daunting. Bit tidier but also a bit happier. Guess really it’s the theory of breaking a problem down into constituent parts and speaking to yourself as you would to a friend. Hope today goes well.